We’re welcoming new machine shop supervisor Shawn Blucher to Northern Iron and Machine.
Blucher comes to Northern with experience at multiple locations. He was a 2018 graduate of Anoka Tech. After graduation, Shawn went to the Dotson Foundry in Mankato, Minnesota. After six months, he moved into a programming position at Alumacraft. At Alumacraft he did a lot of programming, working with routers and CNC brake presses.
Shawn made his way back to the Twin Cities area, taking a job at La Machine Shop in Ham Lake. He ended up in a supervisor position. “I did a lot of team building, worked really close with our CI engineer and we pretty much transformed my department from an old tribal knowledge type of way to a newer, lean, 5S direction,” said Blucher.
What is the “5S” program?
The 5S program is derived from five Japanese terms beginning with the letter “S” to help create a workplace suited for visual control and lean production.
Some of the benefits from a 5S program include improved safety, lower defect rates, reduced costs, increased production, improved employee morale and better asset utilization.
Blucher’s first impressions of Northern Iron
Blucher was hired as the machine shop supervisor at Northern Iron in August. “The people are great, the culture definitely seems like it’s going in the right direction,” said Blucher. “There is definitely a lot of room for improvement, but all of the guys in the machine shop seem very willing to learn and very willing to change.”
What Northern Iron’s machine shop has to offer
Northern Iron’s machine shop offers more than 14 CNC machines including horizontal, vertical, turning and automated systems. Our machinists work on some of the most precise machining equipment and Northern checks on the dimensions of the automated CMMs throughout each shift. You can find a list of our machine shop capabilities and equipment by clicking here.
“We really strive on quality,” said Blucher. “Making sure the part that we’re putting out is a good part, it’s to print. We’re working really closely with our inspectors and our guys on the floor, I’m trying to make sure I’m a part of anything that seems to need a little tweaking here and there.”
The machine shop consists of machinist, operators, set-up machinists and inspectors at Northern Iron.
Changes to make the machine shop more efficient
While the machine shop produces high-quality machined castings, Blucher would like to see some changes to make it even more efficient. “I’d like to implement some 5S and do some cross training with our set-up of guys. We have a lot of guys at different levels of experience, so I’d like to get some cross-training going on and really get these guys efficient, figure out what they need from me to set them up for success.”
Blucher also said he’d like to start using set-up sheets and reflect a little more per operation versus per part. “Just to fine tune it a bit, make sure these guys have the information they should need,” he said. Blucher continued “Trying to get to know the guys and figure out where everyone is at relationship-wise around the shop. But everyone really seems to get along well, which is good. We can definitely build a good team.”
As far as equipment, Blucher says the shop has good, accurate mills and machines. He said one or two of them are getting a little older, but still very accurate. “We could probably due to update those to the same years we already have on the floor or even newer.”
Goals for the future of Northern Iron’s machine shop
One of Blucher’s main goals in the machine shop is to bring lead times way down and to be as efficient as possible. “I want to be able to bring a new guy in and he should be able to understand how everything goes within that first week or two,” said Blucher. “Bring that learning curve way down, standardize everything, so when you’re jumping from machine to machine everything is the same.”
When it comes to who Blucher and Northern Iron are looking for to help in the machine shop, “there are so many different sides to machining and it’s hard to know exactly what they know and what they’ve experienced,” said Blucher. He continued to say a good cross-training metric would help and it would provide new employees the knowledge of who to seek out with questions. “When I’ve trained new people in, by week two they usually are pretty comfortable with what’s going on. They’re still going to be asking questions, but they’ll at least have a good grasp of the flow of everything.”
Contact Northern Iron today
You can check out the latest job openings at Northern Iron and across the Lawton Standard family of companies by heading here.
To learn more about the machine shop and what it can do for your business, give us a call at 651-778-3300 or visit our machining section of the website.
